CBC is organizing a benefit concert for Tsunami Relief: Canada for Asia. It will include big names such as Barenaked Ladies, Celine Dion, and Tragically Hip. According to this article, they are making it available for private broadcasters to pick up. I hope they accept. It's what you do in a crisis: band together (no pun originally intended).
The same article says that CTV is also planning their own benefit concert starring Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan and others.
As I said in yesterday's post, The Other Disaster, we really do a pretty good job at mobilizing for such disasters. They focus our attention and bring out the best in us.
It would be unrealistic of me to wish for the magnitude of this outpouring to continue on into The Other Disaster, but if we could even sustain a modicum of the care, energy, and commitment, the world would become a better place for countless millions.
Read more about Canada for Asia on the CBC website.
It seems that our responses and reactions to world events are dictated by media coverage (I recently posted on this very subject). Today, for instance, I was listening to a review of UK Sunday newspapers, and the point was made that no newspaper reported on the signing of a new peace deal in Sudan, which should end a 20 year old war.
ReplyDeleteIf a peace deal was to be signed between the Palestinians and the Israelis, would that also be ignored? And yet I would guess that many more lives will be saved by the Sudan deal than would be the case in the Middle East.
But don't mind me - I have a bit of a thing about the media!